


The Way We Were

by fadedink



Series: Days of Christmas - 2008 [4]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-12-04
Updated: 2008-12-04
Packaged: 2017-10-26 00:02:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 608
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/276331
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fadedink/pseuds/fadedink
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Faded photographs and memories.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Way We Were

**Author's Note:**

> The 'fourth day of Christmas', and many thanks to [](http://meredevachon.livejournal.com/profile)[**meredevachon**](http://meredevachon.livejournal.com/) for providing the pairing and prompt. Enjoy it, sweetie!

_**FIC: "The Way We Were" - 1/1, PG, SPN, gen**_  
Title: The Way We Were  
Fandom: Supernatural  
Character(s): John Winchester  
Rating: PG  
Summary: Faded photographs and memories.  
Disclaimer: Fiction, folks. All recognizable characters belong to Eric Kripke and the CW, and I make no claim to them. I'm merely borrowing them for a brief time.  
Notes: The 'fourth day of Christmas', and many thanks to [](http://meredevachon.livejournal.com/profile)[**meredevachon**](http://meredevachon.livejournal.com/) for providing the pairing and prompt. Enjoy it, sweetie!

  
  
 _Memories, may be beautiful and yet  
What's too painful to remember  
We simply choose to forget_  
~ Barbara Streisand

He looks at the photo one last time before tucking it into his jacket just over his heart. John can still remember the day he snapped the photo. Dean was not quite two and Sam not yet born. And Mary...

Ah, Lord, Mary. The sun had gleamed off her hair, turning it into a sheet of molten gold as it swung around her shoulders, and her smile had rivaled its brightness when she laughed with Dean. John still can't look at the picture, faded as it was, without pain.

There is another photo tucked behind the first, this one of Mary in the hospital, arms carefully cradling a blue-bundled infant. Her smile was the same, brilliant in its beauty, but tired from the long night she'd just spent. And the infant...

It's still amazing to look at that photo. So hard to believe that Sam had ever been that tiny, that helpless, that innocent.

And John had sworn, on Mary's grave, that he'd protect her sons, regardless of the cost. He'd do for them what he couldn't do for her or her parents.

John would die to keep them from harm. And now...

The deal had been impossible to refuse, impossible to ignore. But John has faith that he's done the best he can, bargained as well as he could. It was such a simple thing and so easy to agree.

His life for theirs.

Just as he'd always planned.

There are more photographs, more memories, tucked in a box with letters for both boys. His poor attempt to explain, because he knows what will happen. Sam...well, Sam will be okay. He'd started to make his own way when Dean had pulled him back in, and Sam will be just fine. Dean, though.... All the things that can (and will) go wrong there scare John. He doesn't need prophecy or divine intervention to know that Dean will implode, make some bad choices, come to hate John for everything that's happened.

John only hopes that Dean knows, underneath all the anger, that John loves him too much to let him die. That's why Missouri has a box with faded memories and dreams, hope and love, and words that John doesn't quite believe will be enough. One day, the boys will make their way back there, and they'll know.

They'll know that John wants Sam to go back to school and get his degree and get _out_ for good.

They'll know that John wants Dean to not just survive, but to _live_ and grow old and hold his own son in his arms, and maybe a little girl with Mary's smile, too.

They'll know just how proud John is of them, of the men they are and the men they'll become.

There's so much that John wants for them, so much that he's always wanted for them, and no time left to tell them. One hand lifts to touch his jacket, fingertips pressing lightly against the pictures beneath the fabric, and John looks into yellow eyes and smiles.

"Alright, you bastard, we've got a deal."


End file.
